Timpanogos Pics!

Well, we have pictures uploaded to our computer and boy is there so much to blog about this month. Hopefully I will share it all with you, but for this post I just wanted to share pics from our ordeal…I mean hike up Timpanogos. (Actually the hike up wasn’t so bad because we were all looking forward to getting to the top. It was the hike back down that got hard. We kept expecting to see the parking lot after leaving each valley only to find another set of switchbacks and obstacles ahead.)

Starting out with the sun just barely starting to come up.

  Dave leaping obstacles.

A beautiful valley.

Mama Moose, Daddy Moose, and Baby Moose! It was fun to see these from a distance. However on our way back down the trail James heard the clomp of a big hoof right behind him as he was the last in our train of people. He turned around to see a giant Mama moose right behind him. She was big and we scrambled up the side of the trail to let her pass. It was quite an adventure.

  

More obstacles.

Even MORE obstacles. These parts were ok, it was when we got to parts of the trail that were completely covered over in rocks or snow that it was hard. We had to climb the snow and rocks using hands and feet to keep from sliding down.

 

Here is a portion of what we climbed. Beautiful. I wish we had gotten pictures of all the wild flowers. There were fields of them and there were so many different kinds too!

Niel enjoying a little PB & J in another beautiful valley just before the hike gets kind of hard and ugly. It was in this valley that I learned the importance of always bringing baby wipes or toilet paper with you wherever you go. Luckily April was prepared and she and I learned in a patch of trees how to really “rough it.” FYI  for anyone who may want to go on this hike, there is one toilet halfway up the trail but it is full to the top and falling over so make sure you have someone to act as a lookout for you as you have to get up close and personal with nature.

Success! Actually this is not the very top. This is the “Saddle” but we decided it was close enough. Getting to the top would have meant climbing over a treacherous trail for another hour and then having to come back down for an hour. We decided to call this good.

Here’s the view looking over one side of the mountain.

Here’s the view looking over the other side of the mountain.

Pioneer Day

So today is Pioneer Day for all of us Utahns which is great because it means a vacation day for so many of us. We decided to celebrate the pioneers by going on an 8 hour hike as a tribute to their hard work. Ok, we actually did it because my brother-in-law Dave called us up yesterday to see if we would be up for hiking Mt. Timpanogos. We were all for it. Little did we realize what we were getting ourselves into. We got up at 3:30 so we could be at April and Dave's by 4:30 am. After piling in the car and a winding drive we began our hike at 5:40 am. (This is the only way to do this hike by the way. Do not try and do it in the middle of the day, it is just not worth the pain you will have to endure.) We hiked about 13 miles total and my body is now so tired. Now that I think about it, this was a great way to celebrate Pioneer Day. I am so grateful for them and what they endured. I don't know how they crossed the plains and came to the Salt Lake Valley except that they couldn't have done it without exceptional faith.

The hike was so beautiful and probably my favorite I've ever done because of the many many wild flowers, rocks, snow, and waterfalls. I wish the computer would recognize my camera so I could download the pics we took, but for now these will have to give you an idea of the hike.

And the Verdict is.....

Ok, I may have to catch a bunch of you up to date before I reveal what in the world "the verdict" actually means. You see I'm super bad at sharing this kind of news but James and I are expecting Baby Speirs #1. I'm 20 weeks along which means I should only have about 20 more weeks to go. So I am sorry for this late notice to so many people that we have not told. I'm more of one of those people who would rather everyone just figures it out on their own. (For some reason I feel awkward telling people this kind of stuff).

James however insists that we tell ya'll now even though I think it would be fun for people to just discover that at some point we had three kids and a fourth on the way.

So once again, I am sorry, but now it makes the wait only half as long for you. :)

And now for the really exciting stuff. (drum roll) We are having a happy, healthy little GIRL. Yup, "Baby Speirs" can now be "Baby Suzzy" or "Baby Gretchen" or whatever you want to call her as long as it is feminine in nature. (As you can tell, we're needing some name help so please feel free to suggest).

Cable and Internet

Anyone who knows me (James) knows that I love computers and I love fiddling (not with the musical instrument, with electronics). For example, I would love to have a smart home some day. That’s the type of house that your can program to turn on your lights and stuff and the house can call you when you’re kids get home from school if your out of town. Stuff like that. Anyways with that small rant, here is what I did just recently.

I cut a hole in the wall of our living room.

You may be thinking, what an odd shape to cut into the wall of your living room. Why not a triangle, or an octagon. Rectangles are so boring their almost, as our parent used to say, “square”.

The reason for the rectangle is because I am wiring up a cable output. Previously the cable (for TV/internet) cam out of the floor itself. See this before picture below, it’s coming out of the floor on the right side of the room. The white rectangle you see next to it on the wall next the floor is not the cable output. The cable is literally coming out of the carpet.

Before I go too far, notice how thick the wall was when I cut through it (2 pictures up). It must have taken me an hour or two to cut through it and here is why:

1. I couldn’t find any studs so I didn’t know where to cut. The reason I couldn’t mark studs is because the wall is too thick for our “deep” stud finder. Seriously, it’s a “deep” stud finder.
2. The wall was so thick and took a while to cut through. (About 1 and 3/4 inches thick.)
3. There were 4 layers to cut through: drywall, paper, plaster, and wood planks.

Anyways, enough stalling, here is the finished product:

What’s that you say, not a cable output only? Of course not. I had to add internet too and while I was at it I though I would add video and audio lines that connected to the DVD player, TiVo, etc in the basement. This the video/audio lines we can watch on the upstairs computer monitor whatever is on the downstairs TV. Nice hookup eh?

Home Tour: The Complete 2 Episode Season (Part 1 and Two)

So here is some news that some of you know and some don’t. We have been looking for homes over the last few months and we finally found one. We moved into it about three weeks ago.

So, check out the pics and enjoy a little home tour of what the place looked like before we bought it. Later will include pictures about changes we’ve made to the home.

Outside of Home

This is the front of the house with a picture of the driveway and carport. There is ample room for one car under the carport, but not enough for two.

This is also the front yard, but from another angle. Isn’t that snazzy that we were able to take pictures from two angles of the front of the house?

Here is the inside of the carport. We were really looking forward to this for the Mustang to protect it from the elements.

From the previous picture if you were to turn to your left then you would see this, part of our back yard. They left this nice shed for us, and a lawnmower, weed wacker, ladder, etc. Very nice of them.

Here is the rest of the back yard. Its a very nice back yard with a decent amount of privacy thanks to all those big trees at the end of it.

Inside of Home

This is the front porch. You can see what this looks like from the outside from the pictures up above. We want to put some nice chairs and a table in here I think. This would be an awesome visiting area because it can be opened to let air flow or closed to keep temperature. It also has a ceiling fan and light.

Yesterday there was a big lightning and thunder storm and Paula and I hung out in here to watch it for a bit. It was very cool. Unfortunately we don’t have seats yet so we stood instead.

This is the front door to the house, looking in from the front porch.

This is the front living room. (The picture before this was looking in on this room too.) That brick thing against the wall is where an old wood burning stove used to sit to heat the home. We’ll take that out before too long I’m sure.

Here is the living room from another angle. We’re actually looking at it from the kitchen right now. I don’t know what was in those big black bags in the living room. It was a don’t ask don’t tell sort of thing. Also, see that cable on the floor in the left of the picture? That was the TV cable coming right out of the floor. We’ve since fixed that and will some day blog the changes we made to fix that.

If you turn around from the last picture then you’ll see this kitchen. Of all the houses we looked at, this one had the largest kitchen by a lot. We were pretty exited about having room to place the kitchen table in the kitchen.

Here is the kitchen from another angle. We have huge windows over the sink. It’s very nice.

There is a hallway off the kitchen that leads to two bedrooms and a bath. This is the first bedroom, sorry about the poor angle. Its pictures like these that keep me from being one of the top photographers in the world.

This is the same room but from another angle.

This is the bathroom. It has the largest variety of out dated items that we had seen in any home. For example, that vanity thing on the left of the picture is from the 70’s or something.

The tub walls are made from cultured marble, the paint is a minty green… yeah we’ll have to change that too.

Here we have a medicine cabinets from the 20’s and that other thing on the wall from the 90’s. Now that’s variety. Lets give the bathroom a hand for it’s diversity. Bravo.

To be continued…

Unfortunately I need to go now, but I don’t know when I’ll get to continue this post so we’ll leave room for a part 2 of this small series. Until then…

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And now, for the exciting conclusion to: “Home Tour”

Last time, on “Home Tour” we left you at the bathroom. Now we admit that although the bathroom is not the most kosher of places to leave someone, you must admit that it is probably one of the few places in a house where you can meet most of your needs. Enough said.

Here we have picture one of what we made into our bedroom. Its the larger of the two bedrooms upstairs and we like the windows. Below is another picture of the room from a different angle.

Ok, now for a little jump, we are going back out the bedroom door, through the kitchen, and out the back kitchen door. And what do we have there? I’m sure you are just so curious to know.Well, we’ll save that for another blog entry… Ok, I’ll stop being dramatic. We find at the back of the kitchen some stairs to the basement.

You can also see the back door (out to the carport) from here. Nice, a carport!

Behold, the basement (as seen from the carport door).

And here we are in the basement. To the right is the furnace, hot water heater, and laundry hookups. I would try to make that sound exciting, but let’s just admit that right now it isn’t all that exciting. To the right you’ve got the third bedroom, pictured below.

This is the room we are planning to turn into our TV room. That means no TV upstairs. I guess I can live with that.

If you are already suffering from boredom you may want to skip these next two pictures of the furnace room. If not then brace yourself, or if you are trying to fall asleep after a long day then by all means proceed to the furnace/laundry room.

And that concludes our home tour. Look forward to future blogs of how we fix this place up.

Ok, I did make it back

Hi Everyone I just thought I would let you know that I did make it back from D.C. It was an amazing trip and a real eye opener for me. We got to go to the VA Hospital and meet veterans and nurses and doctors who worked with the "War Related Injuries and Illnesses Study Center" or WRIISC. That was interesting and we learned alot about Traumatic Brain Injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

We also got to go to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and listened to panels of nurses who have been in the field, as well as visit ward 57 which is a well known ward for recently and not so recently injured vets. It was humbling to see so many young men who had sacrificed so much. If you don't know what I mean, please see the post below.

One thing that amazed me about this hospital was that it had such top-of-the-line technology. Also all the nurses tried to recruit us into the Army. If I wasn't married and didn't plan on having a family I would have considered it. The Army does seem to have some perks. I'm glad that I don't have to make that decision though, and that others have chosen that path.

We also got to tour D.C. and got private tours of the Pentagon and of the Capital building. Someday I would like to take my family back to D.C. for a vacation. The transportation is easy and all 19 of the Smithsonians are free, not to mention the amazing monuments. D.C. has some pretty neat history behind it as well.



The Lincoln Memorial was amazing. It is so much bigger in real life. Next to me are my good nursing buddies Melanie and Angelynn.


The tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a very solemn and humbling site. There is a guard 24/7 365 days a year. The men guarding it show so much respect. It is one of the highest honors to guard this tomb. One interesting fact is that one way of showing respect is for the guard to prepare their uniform the day before which takes a whooping 8 hours!


Another interesting fact I learned on this trip is that the Arlington National Cemetery was orriginally land owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. This is his house.


Did I mention that I got to meet Obama? Ok, he's just a cut out at the Obama store, but I couldn't resist.
I especially liked this monument which is part of the Vietnam memorial. This is a tribute to all the nurses of Vietnam. It is very symbolic and though you can only see 2, there are three nurses each representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. (Please forgive my tired appearance. This was the end of a long and busy day).

At the Smithsonian. How can I resist getting a picture of the evil Red Coat pilaging a home?


The WWII memorial with the Lincoln Memorial behind.
Don't I look set to work for the Department of Defense at the Pentagon? No? This was amusing because you are not allowed to take any pictures at the Pentagon except in this little corner by the gift shop where they set up this fake podium.